Justice
by AndAgain
Summary: Anders muses on having lied to Hawke about the potion that he will soon use to blow up the Chantry as they wait for their companions near the bone pit. He's lost her in so many ways, and now he'll lose her once more. Sad and more than a bit angsty. One-Shot.


Anders's palms were sweating.

It was harder than he could possibly have imagined, lying to Hawke. There she was, wisps of flaming red hair escaping the cowl she wore in the cold night air. The stars shone brightly over the abandoned plateau and caught in the silver of her armor. Anders had no idea how long they'd been sitting there, silently, on the hard ground of the Bone Pit, waiting for their companions.

When he'd sent the runner to her house, Anders had paced the infirmary with short, agitated steps. It had taken half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, for her to appear, but he didn't stop moving the whole time.

He'd straightened pillows, refolded blankets, double- and triple-checked the one patient that currently occupied the space, moaning in a bunk in the corner with a broken ankle, and finally resorted to muttering long-ago-memorized cantrips for a distraction.

He was going to lie. To lie to_ Hawke_. She'd never done anything but help him. She'd always shown mercy when dealing with apostates - whenever they let her speak to them, that is. She didn't attack unprovoked, preferring instead to give the rogue mages money and send them away without a backwards glance. She had become sort of a robin hood of the mage underground.

Time and time again, Hawke had left her more law-abiding friends behind, taking Anders, Varric and Isabela (then Merrill, after the pirate ran off) on anything she thought even remotely related to Anders's cause.

She'd been his friend for nearly nine years, through thick and thin and Andraste knows what else.

Hawke had never done anything to hurt him - well, there had been one time, and that had been his fault, anyway.

He'd tried to get her to listen to another one of his ranting sermons on that disgustingly narrow-minded elf, Fenris, and when she protested, he'd sulked sullenly for hours.

Eventually, in her most tired voice, Hawke had sought him out and asked him to get whatever it was off his chest.

"Look, Anders," she'd sighed, leaning on a tree in a defensive position, "just_ say_ it."

And he'd ignored the signs, the strain in the lines (when had those got there?) near her eyes, the tense way she folded her arms against her chest - Anders had been stupid.

He went off on her for getting so close to the elf, for letting him come with them so often, for giving in when he complained about having to sleep near the mages and letting him break the protective circle of camp.  
"He'll only leave you!" he'd shouted, "Why do you_ care_?"

Her face had contorted suddenly, into an animalistic mask of fear and anger and pain, and her eyes had filled with tears. Anders had never seen her look even remotely that upset, and he'd shut up, but it was too late.

"Anders," she'd forced through gritted teeth as drops started to fall from her lashes onto her freckle-spattered cheekbones, "He makes me feel safe. Which is more than I can say you've ever done- but it doesn't even matter. He_ has_ left me."

"What?" the mage had choked out, feeling the blood drain from his face. He hadn't even known they were really together. What in Thedas had the elf done?

Her cheeks colored, and she forced the tale out from between lips thin with anguish.

They'd slept together, and something had happened - his memories had started to return, and he'd left. He'd gotten up and left the house.

Anders watched her eyes as she told him.

They'd slept together. He'd left her.

And, what was more, she was_ still in love with him._

Anders felt his heart shrivel and die. She would never be his. He would never hold that small, lithe body in his arms the way he'd been itching to since they first met.

Now, three years later, he tried to remind himself that he didn't deserve her. He'd lied to her, told her he'd found a way to separate from Justice, and she'd lapped it up. Hawke had smiled like he'd given her the sun - what had that news meant to her? Anders wondered this as he watched her pull the furred cowl closer over her ears, feeling a pang of an old hatred at the object - Fenris had given it to her, and she wore it all the time. Her eternally tousled hair was hidden under the hood - just one more little piece of her that Anders had to do without.

_I'm being unreasonable_. the mage thought to himself,_ She'll stop wearing it in the spring._

Except, there wouldn't be any spring - not for him, anyway. Anders had no illusions as to what would be done with him when they found out about the bomb. He could already feel the cold dagger sliding between his ribs, the crimson blood spilling from the wound and down the weapon. In his head, it was almost always either Fenris or Sebastian that did it.

But some secret part of him, buried deep, wanted it to be Hawke. Wanted to watch the loss and fury in her eyes, the fire in her hair mirrored by the flames in her cheeks. He wanted it to be her steady hands on the hilt of that blade, the one that he thought sure would end his life. She was efficient, his Hawke, and not prone to messy kills.

It would be personal, if it was her. She wouldn't hate him for it - he was positive about that; it wasn't in her nature - but she wouldn't cry, either. She would make sure he died with dignity, important, if only to her. She wouldn't let him go easily either, she might fight the other two at first.

But that was unkind - Anders forced himself to lock that dark hope away. It could destroy her, that. She had lost so much by being too late - Carver killed by an ogre, Bethany locked in the Circle, their mother wasted away in her daughter's arms, a horrible monstrosity somehow still possessed of enough soul to say goodbye.

At least if it was Sebastian, who would kill him like a common prisoner, with an arrow in the heart or head, or Fenris, who would do it like he was executing a traitor, quickly and with no little amount of vengeful joy, she might be convinced by someone that it wasn't her fault.

There was a clanking from over the horizon, and Fenris's wispy white hair appeared behind the hill, followed by the bobbing up and down of Bianca on Varric's back.

Anders stood, and so did Hawke. She turned to smile at him, the grin lighting up her whole face, already ruddy and glowing with cold, and he tried to freeze that look in his mind and stow it somewhere permanent.

"Are you ready?" she asked over the wind.

He forced himself to smile in reply.

"Of course. Let's go."


End file.
